Poker Face
by Lady Gaga
A card about one thing: gambling. Cards, spades, roulette, casino, bank, gun — learn this set and you take a whole domain of English at once, which is far more efficient than collecting words at random. The real lesson, though, is spoken reduction. wanna and 'em turn up again and again, and they are how English is actually said rather than how it is written. Learners who only ever read are the ones who cannot follow a native speaker at normal speed, and this card is a controlled dose of that problem. Do not reproduce either in an exam. There is a present perfect in he's been hooked worth stopping on too. B1- is fair: the words are short, but the delivery is quick.
How to study this song
Learning “Poker Face” means 45 entries at B1- — 26 English words, 7 adjectives and 12 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. The glossary is the place to begin — bank, cards and casino are the song’s keywords. Nothing dominates this card: 26 words against 12 verb forms, so the study time splits evenly. At this level part of the list will already be familiar; the rest is what closes the gap.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bank | banco | banca | banque | banco |
What this song teaches you
Level · B1-
- Vocabulary words
- 26
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 9
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 16
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Poker Face” is the electro-pop smash that made Lady Gaga a global superstar, released in 2008 on her debut album “The Fame”. Built on a relentless synth hook and a chanted, impossible-to-forget chorus, it wraps a playful, provocative lyric about desire and disguise in glossy dancefloor production.
Its icy hooks and bold persona announced a fully formed new pop icon. Lady Gaga wrote it with the producer RedOne, who also produced the recording.
Did you know?
The single topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one in the UK and around two dozen other countries, becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time. It won a Grammy Award and, together with “Just Dance”, established Lady Gaga as the defining new pop artist of the late 2000s.
Charts & streaming
“Poker Face” sold in the many millions worldwide and remains one of the biggest-selling singles in digital-era history. A fixture of clubs, radio and streaming, it is still one of Lady Gaga’s most recognisable and most-performed songs.
It stayed forty weeks on the American chart, and with some 9.8 million copies sold during 2009 it was that year’s best-selling single worldwide. It is certified diamond in the United States, and the Grammy it won was for Best Dance Recording, alongside nominations for Record and Song of the Year.